This doesn't deal directly with Virginia politics, but if you didn't see today's edition of Meet the Press, you missed a fascinating discussion Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) regarding the future of scandal-ridden House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. As usual, Frank made great points, such as:
...there's a pattern here. The Republicans took power in 1995 on the grounds that things were terribly corrupt and badly run and they were going to change things. And it is true, initially, they changed them... Now, that they've been in power for a while, these rules are inconvenient...So they've changed the rules back.
In other words, the Republican Party has gone from being the self-proclaimed Reform Party in Congress during the mid 1990s to the entrenched, insider, arrogant, corrupt, incumbent-protection Party we see in action today.
Frank noted that House Republicans, in order to protect their leader DeLay:
...changed the Ethics Committee...First of all, they got rid of some of the members who have been critical of Mr. DeLay, the Republicans. They purged some of the more independent Republicans, penalizing them for having been critical of Mr. DeLay. Secondly, they changed the rules. And this is very serious....as a result, what you've got is a substantial weakening of the Ethics Committee, so we are unlikely to have an independent forum in which we can see whether these are valid or not.
Meanwhile, the lame excuse Tom DeLay comes up with is to claim that he is being harrassed by "a bunch of leftist organizations that have a public strategy to demonize me." Which is stupid, of course, given that most Democrats would like nothing better than to see Tom DeLay remain in power, symbol and leader of the Republican Party, and then let the voters decide in 2006.
It's also stupid to say only "leftist organizations" are after DeLay. This past Tuesday, as Tim Russert pointed out:
...former speaker Newt Gingrich, hardly a leftist, had this to say... "Well, that's the famous Hillary Clinton defense. This is the `vast left-wing conspiracy' as opposed to her description of a `vast right-wing conspiracy.' ...when you're being attacked, the first thing you naturally do is you describe your attackers. In this case, that won't work. DeLay's problem isn't with the Democrats. DeLay's problem is with the country. And so DeLay has a challenge, I think, to lay out a case that the country comes to believe, that the country decides is legitimate.
Russert also noted that Gingrich wasn't the only Republican breaking with Tom DeLay last week -- Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chris Shays (R-CT), Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) all had critical things to say. These people, to quote Russert, are "hardly part of a left-wing conspiracy."
This finally brings us back to our favorite Virginia Republican, Jerry Kilgore, who has had barely a word to say about Tom DeLay except that Kilgore has "confidence" that the House leadership would "do the right thing here." Apparently, Kilgore is operating under the assumption that letting foxes guard the chicken coop is a good idea. As our own "Matusleo" pointed out,
In the end it?ll lead to [the Republicans] ruin of course. The Democrats have to keep airing these charges out in the public, they have to hammer ?The Hammer? continuously. Let the GOP make a mockery of the ethics process, and their transformation into corrupt insiders will be complete. At that point, Democrats can run as outside reformers, and sweep them from office...
And that "sweep" from office includes people like the Jerry Kilgores of the world, who are cut from the same cloth as Tom DeLay. Just ask Democrats in Kilgore's home of Scott County, Virginia what they think of the corrupt Kilgore machine down there, and specifically whether or not they see a resemblance to the tactics and attitude of Tom DeLay. My guess is that they'll agree wholeheartedly with the assertion: Jerry Kilgore and Tom DeLay are far too close for comfort.